Rocacorba Daily

Thursday May 15, 2014

by Matt de Neef - May 15, 2014

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In this morning's edition of the Rocacorba Daily news digest: Diego Ulissi wins stage five of the Giro, Matthews holds pink; Will Routley wins stage 4 of the Tour of California; Australians continue solid showing at the Giro d'Italia; Battle on the Border starts today; French journalist drives 2,700km from Ireland to Italy to cover Giro; 220 million euros not enough to solve Dutch bike parking issues; Tips to improve your times on Strava.

Diego Ulissi wins stage five of the Giro, Matthews holds pink

Michael Matthews put in a superb defence of his Maglia Rosa on the fifth stage of the Giro d’Italia yesterday, sticking with the climbers on the uphill finish to Viggiano and holding on to the pink jersey.

The Orica-GreenEDGE rider rode hard in the finale to prevent time gains by the stage winner Diego Ulissi and others, closing a gap which opened as the uphill specialists skirmished for the stage win.

Ulissi hit the line a second ahead of BMC’s Cadel Evans and Julian Arredondo (Trek Factory Racing), the former showing good form and reminding his younger rivals that he is a serious contender for the overall classification.

Lampre-Merida rider Ulissi timed his finishing surge perfectly, kicking clear of the others inside the final 200 metres. His combination of power and pace earned him his second Giro stage win of his career, following on from his 2011 triumph in Tirano.

“I managed to hide myself for most of the day,” the 24-year-old Italian said afterwards. “It was a difficult day and very, very windy. Of course I tried to position myself well and luckily I was able to do it.”

Matthews was relieved at the finish and said he and the team want to retain the jersey tomorrow. “Today’s stage was the big goal for me. We showed we really deserved this jersey,” he said. “We proved today that we have a really strong team, because to keep the jersey and to be able to have a good crack at the finish you need a good team.”

Wednesday’s race started in Taranto and covered 203 kilometres of the toughest roads yet in this year’s Giro. While it was some way off a full mountain stage, the second half of the day included the third category Valico di Serra di San Chirico and then two ascents of the fourth category climb in Viggiano itself. The second of those acted as the finish, giving the general classification riders a chance to show their form and test their rivals for the first time.

The group build a four minute lead into the early headwind, enabling Swift to take the intermediate sprint at Montalbano Jonico (kilometre 70) ahead of Viviani and Farrar. Rubiano then picked up top mountains points at the prime ahead of the fragmented breakaway, with several short-lived attacks firing off from the main bunch.

The break continued on but was eventually reeled in 23 kilometres from the line, after which the peloton hit the first ascent of the finishing climb.

Will Routley wins stage 4 of the Tour of California

Will Routley (Optum p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) has won stage 4 of the Tour of California, taking a sprint victory at the head of a six-rider breakaway that outlasted the efforts of a chasing peloton being led home by Mark Cavendish’s Omega Pharma-QuickStep squad.

Australians continue solid showing at the Giro d’Italia

The strong Australian display at the Giro d’Italia continued Wednesday with Cadel Evans and Michael Matthews in the hunt for the stage win and the latter retaining his Maglia Rosa of race leader.

Surprisingly, Evans said that he didn’t feel good in the finale. “After days with rain and cold, my legs are not at their best,” he stated. “In the final I was a little blocked with one kilometre to go and without help. But I got back in front and into second place. In the end, l am happy about the result.”

In that light, and providing his legs feel better in the days ahead, the Australian can be optimistic about his chances of fighting for the overall honours in the race. He has jumped to third overall and has time in hand over all of his rivals for the general classification.

Matthews has a very different set of goals in the race, but he too climbed well today. Gaps opened up inside the final kilometre as first Nicolas Roche (Tinkoff-Saxo) and then a number of other riders ramped up the pace. Matthews was able to drag the group back up to those who had pulled slightly clear and rolled across the line in a very solid sixth position.

“It didn’t quite pan out the way I thought,” he said afterwards. “I had a mental picture in which there were lots of attacks, but I think everyone was pinned and no one could get away. I think it was Quintana who dropped the wheel in front, so it was up to me to close the gap.

Battle on the Border starts today

The third round of the men’s Subaru National Road Series gets underway today with stage 1 of the Battle on the Border. The five-stage event commences in northern New South Wales with a 148km road stage from Point Danger to Mt. Warning.

The race also features a further two road stages (stage 2 and 5), an individual time trial (stage 3) and a criterium (stage 4).

The four-stage women’s Battle on the Border commences tomorrow with four stages: two road races, an ITT and a criterium.

Last year’s Battle on the Border was won by Jack Haig and Ruth Corset. Both riders are confirmed starters for this year’s race.

Click here to read more about the Battle on the Border at the Subaru National Road Series website.

French journalist drives 2,700km from Ireland to Italy

French cycling journalist Antoine Plouvin needed to get from Ireland to Italy to continue covering the Giro d’Italia for cyclismactu but rather than flying like the rest of the journos, he decided to drive the 2,700km from Belfast to Bari.

After finishing work in the Dublin pressroom after stage 3 he drove to the ferry … and arrived at the start in Bari 38 hours later.

“It was a race the entire way,” he explained. “From Holyhead at 0:30, I had to cover 600 kilometres to reach Dover and a ferry that left at 7:30. It wasn’t easy.”

Plouvin stopped just twice in 38 hours, for an hour each time. He spends much of his year on the road, driving between bike races.

“It’s about 70,000 kilometres of driving a year and about 200 days away from home, but I’m single, 27 years old and I enjoy it.”

220 million euros not enough to solve Dutch bike parking issues

Overflowing bike racks at train stations has prompted the Dutch government to throw €220m at the problem, but according to the nation’s railway infrastructure company, ProRail, even that level of investment won’t be enough to fix the problem.

Roughly half a million people in the Netherlands ride to their local train station daily. And while the investment will see the addition of 100,000 new bike racks, ProRail is predicting that the problem will only get worse as more people ride to the station.

Meanwhile, a report by Dutch road safety body, VeiligheidNL, has shown that Dutch cycle paths are at saturation point as well, leading to a reported increase in bike-on-bike collisions.

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I have to say I’ve been incredibly impressed by OGE in the last year, yellow at the tour and pink at the Giro plus many other heroics. I think it’s fair to say the guys are punching well above their weight. They’re out there showing that teamwork and camaraderie can go a long way. Multiple instances of mateship being shown like Gerro handing yellow to Impey, and giving pink to Tuft for his birthday, and guys turning themselves inside out to help each other.
They seem to be one of if not THE best TTT performers in the world right now and that’s a massive achievement for them to be showing up teams with arguably much bigger budgets and prestige.
It’s nice to see true sportsmanship being displayed in this tarnished post PED’s era, sport in general needs more of this kind of display.
Well done guys.

Steve

Nicely said until you got to the PED part there’s a fair few riders in the current OGE with bad links that no armchair fan would really take note of

Sean

Nah I doubt it, OGE riders are all clen. You should be more positive about our wonderful sport.

jules

did you mean to say clean or was that deliberate? ;)

Sean

Julie it was an honest typo, I’m not one to take silly cheap shots or make sarcastic remarks.

jules

you’re a real c-rub Sean ;)

Sean the crub

crub ahaha had to look that up. Anyway for the record, i did mean clean.

jules

i was purely joking – was a reference to Chris Pine’s most recent gaffe

velocite

OGE does us Aussies proud, especially with its mateship thing, passing the leader’s jersey between them. But I’m not sure about punching above their weight. I know nothing about their budget, but they don’t seem poor, do they? And we’d be disappointed if they didn’t do well, would we not?

muz

Not enough bike parks, if only most cities/countries had that problem.

Sean

I can imagine the average Melbourneite looking at that photo of bikes and drooling over the missed registration and road rage opportunities.